Bad Influence is a Netflix romance/thriller from Spain with another take on the forbidden romance trope, this time between a young socialite and the reformed criminal hired to protect her. Hanky-panky isn’t in his job description. But has that ever stopped the onslaught of young love? Bad Influence, directed by Chloé Williams and co-written by Williams with Diana Muro, is based on Mala Influencia, a Spanish novel that went viral on Wattpad. So don’t get its generic title twisted with the darkly cool Bad Influence from 1990, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, or even The OC, which is what it feels like as a guy from the wrong side of the tracks is introduced to his new life of ease and rich people problems.
The Gist: When brooding hunk Eros (Alberto Olmo) is sprung from jail by Bruce (Enrique Arce) – “You work for me now” he says, as they climb into his Porsche outside the prison – he enters a life of detached opulence. Bruce’s giant mansion, empty of anything but domestic staff, perfectly arranged possessions, and his high school senior daughter Reese (Rochera), who swims laps alone in the in-ground pool. It will be Eros’s job to shadow Reese, who is being sent threatening messages. A bodyguard, though no one wants to call him that except for the cliquey kids at Reese’s expensive private high school, who make catty memes with Reese and Eros’s heads on Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner’s bodies.
Reese and her bff Lily (Sara Ariño) tolerate Eros lurking nearby in their classrooms, or at Reese’s dance class. (She’s a talented dancer, and applying to ballet companies.) But they’re more interested in him as a guy from outside their lives of upper class privilege. “Oh you’re so mysterious,” Reese gushes as Eros introduces her to Peyton (Mirela Balić) and Diego (Farid Bechara), his friends from juvie, and they all enjoy a little light vandalism together. While the attraction between Reese and Eros is obvious and mutual, it’s also prohibited by Bruce. But he’s often away doing rich guy things, so they have plenty of time to take each other’s shirts off by the pool.
Why did Bruce hire Eros specifically? As Reese’s ostensible protector, his job is mostly just a reason for them to undress each other with their eyes. Did Bruce know Eros before? And what’s with Reese’s unknown stalker, who occasionally texts her cryptic jibes like “Sometimes you have to pay for other people’s mistakes,” but who also doesn’t text her or threaten her with any regularity or urgency? As revealed tidbits slowly – very slowly – dance around these questions, their answers become evident in other ways, Reese and Eros alternate between acting on their attraction and bristling over their class differences, and Peyton begins to exert more influence over both of them. If Eros is “mysterious” to Reese and her wealthy cohort, then Peyton is alluring simply because she could be the most dangerous.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Elite is not a movie, it’s a Spanish series and a whole damn thing, eight seasons’ worth of hysterical social media drama, frequent sexual hijinks, and continued class warfare between students at a high-end Spanish high school. In other words, Elite explored everything Bad Influence does, and in greater detail. The similarities abound, and that’s without even comparing Mirela Balić’s work as Peyton in Bad Influence to her role as Chloe in seasons 7 and 8 of Elite. But here we can also mention The Tearsmith – see below – and Culpa Tuya, the howler of a Spanish drama about “shtoinking stepsiblings.”
Performance Worth Watching: The thing about Mirela Balić, though, is that she was great as the scheming Chloe in Elite, and she’s similarly magnetic in Bad Influence as Peyton, who Reese’s friend Lily calls “an upgraded human being, like we’re the beta version, and she’s the 5.0.”
Memorable Dialogue: It only takes about a half-hour of Bad Influence for someone to say to Eros “You’re a bad influence.” But Bad Influence also spends a load of time skirting around the fact that Eros actually isn’t actually the bad influence everyone should be worried about.
Sex and Skin: Brief male and female shirtlessness; a love scene in half-darkness.
Our Take: In 2024, Netflix brought us The Tearsmith, a film about forbidden young love, based on a novel that blew up Italian #booktok, from pseudonymous author Erin Doom. And in 2025, Netflix brings us Bad Influence, a film about forbidden young love, based on a novel that blew up Wattpad, from pseudonymous author TeenSpirit. These films arrive on the streamer with their potential audience numbers baked in. What fan of the social media platforms where their source material exploded wouldn’t want to see all of that youthful romance realized on screen? But the same issues of execution that plagued The Tearsmith are a detriment to Bad Influence, as well. While Eléa Rochera and Alberto Olmo look lovely together, and are able to develop some connectivity between Reese and Eros, it’s everything around them that’s shaky. This Influence plays out like a stilted TV drama, scattering obvious chapter headings – rich, absent parents; wealth gap jealousies; overheated teenage gossip as storyline misdirects – throughout the progression of Reese and Eros’s attraction, which was telegraphed from the moment her wealthy father pointed out his daughter to the handsome rogue he hired to “watch” her and said “Don’t even think about it.” While forbidden love will never not be a subject of dramas, Bad Influence doesn’t mess enough with the “forbidden” or the “love” parts to make any of this effectively its own.
Our Call: Bad Influence has hotness and hunkiness going for it. What it doesn’t have is much that kept us interested, beyond the sense of will-they-or-won’t-they excitement at its core. This is a STREAM IT for folding laundry/scrolling phones to.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
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